Race to the Top: State Success Factors

The final Race to the Top (R2T) guidelines are out, and we all want to know what Washington’s chances are for scoring a piece of the pie. In a series of posts this week and next, you’ll find a detailed run through of the guidelines, as well as some analysis on where Washington stands (previous post on overall picture here and eligibility and requirements here). This post focuses on the first of six selection criteria: state success factors.

State Success Factors (125 points)

A1. Articulating state’s education reform agenda and local school districts’ participation in it (65 points total)

i. State sets comprehensive and coherent reform agenda (5 points)
ii. Participating local districts are strongly committed to the state’s plans and enter into binding agreements with the state (45 points)
iii. Participating local school districts translate into broad statewide impact (15 points)

These seem like a slam dunk for any state putting together a thorough application. When finding districts to partner with, Washington will need to make sure they are spread throughout the state and represent a significant number of students. Participating districts will need to sign a memorandum of agreement and commit to implementing reforms. If Washington can’t get these points, we don’t stand much of a chance overall.

A2. Building strong statewide capacity to implement, scale up, and sustain proposed plans (30 points total)

i. Ensure that the state has the capacity required to implement its proposed plans (20 points)
ii. Use support from a broad group of stakeholders to better implement the state’s plans (10 points)

These criteria are also feasible. Garnering broad stakeholder support may be a challenge if state application writers leave groups in the dark. It does look like some outreach has been done to start bringing some of the major players along. How this pans out is another story.

A3. Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps (30 points total)

i. Make progress over the past several years in each of the four education reform areas, and used its ARRA and other funding to pursue such reforms (5 points)
ii. Improve student outcomes overall and by student subgroup since at least 2003, specifically increasing student achievement on Math and Reading NAEP and state assessment, decreasing achievement gaps between subgroups on NAEP and state assessments, and increasing high school graduation rates (25 points)

Washington has made some reforms that strongly align with President Obama’s four assurance areas (standards and assessments, longitudinal data systems, effective teachers and principals, turning around low-achieving schools). For example:

• Washington’s academic standards continue to improve and we’re part of the common core standards group
• Completion of Algebra II will become a high school graduation requirement beginning with the Class of 2013
• Washington’s data system continues to grow and is on track to link student, educator and financial data
• Washington is one of the leaders in number of National Board certified teachers

Our data over the past 5 years, however,  may not hurt our application. While 10th grade Reading and Math WASL scores have increased, along with high school graduation rates, gaps between subgroups on 4th grade Reading and Math NAEP are holding steady. Below are the scale scores for Washington 4th graders on the Math and Reading NAEP, passing rates for 10th graders on the Math and Reading WASL, and on-time graduation rates. Green numbers indicate increases in scale scores/passing rates or shrinking achievement gaps. Red numbers indicate decreases in scale scores/passing rates or widening achievement gaps. Purple numbers indicate no or minimal change.

If we look at other grades for the NAEP and WASL exams, we see similar or worse trends. This isn’t to say Washington doesn’t stand a chance to earn points for this criterion, we just probably won’t earn the full 30 points.

Next week we’ll tackle the remaining five Selection Criteria.